


Beautiful Things

by Dubiousculturalartifact (222Ravens)



Category: Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fluff, Kinda, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25684624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/222Ravens/pseuds/Dubiousculturalartifact
Summary: "It’s just... I tried the whole Cinderella thing, and all I ended up with was a broken shoe, y’know?"AU where Nick never does the second proposal, where Nick stays, while Rachel goes back to New York, and Astrid… Well.She does too.
Relationships: Rachel Chu/Astrid Leong
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Beautiful Things

**Author's Note:**

> listen i love Crazy Rich Asians and I love Nick/Rachel in their own way, but sometimes a lesbian has gotta do what a lesbian has gotta do

Rachel flies home to New York with her mother, and part of her is kind of… relieved. 

Okay. She’s also heartbroken. Emotions aren’t simple, and she loved Nick,  loves Nick. He meant so much to her, but… Colin’s joke from their first meeting rises to the forefront of her mind sometimes, unbidden. “Nick Young, who can’t fight for nuts, but will always have your back.” 

She wishes the second part had been as real as the first. Maybe that’s unfair of her. Maybe he had been fighting for her, in his own way, when he’d gotten down on one knee. She hadn’t lied, either. She  was enough. He was even enough. But they weren’t, together. Not for this to work. It’s better, for both of them, for it to be like this.

There were bigger things than the two of them. Rachel herself was one of them, and if it was a pyrrhic victory to understand that, she’ll still take it.

As breakups go, it’s one of her more dramatic ones, and certainly the closest she ever got to anything more serious. So no, she doesn’t immediately bounce back in a week, or even a month.

But she’s got her mom, and her job, which she loves  fiercely , even if she misses meeting up with Nick at that little cafe near the campus. She has papers to write, and a summer conference, a surprising correspondence with Princess Intan about a potential microloans project that needs a bit more academic clout behind it. She has Peik Lin in Facetime sessions that start off a little halting, but quickly devolve into their usual affectionate chaos.

If anything she misses Peik Lin, more. Peik Lin, and Oliver’s acerbic wisdom. Astrid’s gentle kindness. All the other parts of that life that might have been hers, and also never  really could have been.

She talks to Nick directly just a couple times, mostly stuff involving things like making sure his stuff from her apartment gets back to him, and a few tearful attempts at apologies or reconciliation, that both of them know would be a bad idea. He never mentions his mother, not directly and honestly, that’s answer enough. They email a little, and Whatsapp a bit more, but it peters off pretty quickly, and she’s not sorry for that.

Because in between that, there’s the bright summer sunshine in Washington Square Park, and her shitty apartment with the weird neighbours and the broken fire escape that she still wouldn’t move away from for love or money.T here’s dimsum Sundays and the occasional sleepless nights over deadlines or lecture prep, and wandering the Highline with the wind in her hair, or the rattle of riding the subway carrying millions of people a day, with her just one of them, and not one of them have any expectations of who she is, or isn’t.

She has a  life , and it’s a life that she loves, and when she thinks about leaving it all behind for just one boy, no matter how special, that feels like the kind of dream that some other version of herself would be able to say yes to. Someone who played their game differently. 

—

It’s September when Astrid calls her, on a local number.


End file.
